twitter for peace

Twitter Inc won a bid to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the widow of an American killed in Jordan which accused the social media company of giving voice to ISIS, a federal judge ruled on Wednesday. A District Judge in San Francisco ruled that Twitter cannot be held liable for ISIS rhetoric, but gave the plaintiff a chance to refile an amended lawsuit. Social media companies including Twitter have faced pressure to crack down on online propaganda linked to terrorism. Tamara Fields, a Florida woman whose husband Lloyd died in an attack on the police training center in Amman last year, said Twitter knowingly let ISIS use its network to spread propaganda, raise money and attract recruits. While the judge called the deaths “horrific,” he agreed with Twitter that federal law protects the company from liability for the content that third parties publish on its platform. In her complaint filed earlier this year, Fields said San Francisco-based Twitter had until recently given ISIS an “unfettered” ability to maintain official Twitter accounts. The lawsuit said:

Without Twitter, the explosive growth of ISIS over the last few years into the most-feared terrorist group in the world would not have been possible.

Twitter had previously said the lawsuit was without merit, but that “violent threats and the promotion of terrorism deserve no place on Twitter and, like other social networks, our rules make that clear.” Attorneys for Fields and a Twitter representative could not immediately be reached for comment.

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rowan dot berkeley at gmail dot com

Tishby Torat ha-Ra

I intend to complete the hebrew textfile for the whole book and unify it, so that it will be available as one big file to hebrew-reading students on a permanent basis, or as long as the blog lasts, which will ensure its survival and distribution.